The 5-Minute Habit That Makes Juggling Work and Motherhood Feel Easier

0:01Rachael Twumasi-Corson:What do you actually do when it all feels too much? Welcome to this Motherkind Moment with me, your host Zoe. This is a clip from one of my favourite episodes with entrepreneur and mum of four, Rachael Swamami-Corson. In this clip, Rachael shares two tools you can start using today. A simple audit to work out what's draining you and what you can put down and a five minute method that changes how your whole day runs. The thing that stuck with me most from this clip is that most of us, me included, prioritise whatever lands on our calendar and Rachel does it the other way round. She decides what matters first, then she schedules it in.

0:44Rachael Twumasi-Corson:I've started doing it. It is a game changer. I really hope that this clip supports you and inspires you. I hope you love it. Please do share it and subscribe for more like this. A lot of working mothers tell me that they feel like they're constantly lurching from one thing to the other, kind of teetering on the edge of burnout often, you know, having to work late to catch up and then children are up. And I think that's the reality, isn't it? And so I'm wondering how, what's some practical steps that someone can take to get more of this harmony? Yes. Harmony that we want. Yeah, very good question.

1:23Rachael Twumasi-Corson:Okay, so two kind of big initial practicals. I'm going to talk about one that's more in the moment and one that's more long term and big picture. So the big picture one is to do a priority audit. So in a priority audit, you can do this various different ways. So what I like to do two things, either get a big blank sheet of paper and write down everything I'm spending my time on. Sometimes I even do this with my kids and I'll talk about the way I do it with my kids in a minute. I do this very honestly. So there's a resource called the year compass. Yeah. You can do it at any point. I love the year compass because it says go through your diary and write out what did you actually spend your time on?

2:02Yeah. So I'll do a mini version of that with my big sheet of paper. What have I spent time on this week? I use lots of planners, so I'll copy things out from the planner. And I also I have like a habit tracker. So I'll look at my habits. What habits am I doing? What is dropping off? Once I've done that, I like to do something like a wheel of life which I think a lot of coaches use this tool I saw it from a from a life coach and I will do the whole you know shading in the different areas of my life and think about you know how's my will looking then it's really really important to think about the difference between where you are and where you want to be but also take into account the season you're in so this is completely different when your kids are little you know when they go go to school that's a whole different shift when they move through different year groups going from primary to secondary is a whole big thing as well for lots of mums so when you do this audit you're just trying to better understand what are the different stresses what are the different joys and I would definitely advocate for then doing some journaling I think a lot of mums know the kind of life that they want to live and have honest conversations with yourself first and then also with your partner your support network so I remember doing this in a really big way after I I sold my company and I sold it a lot earlier than I wanted to.

3:20So I had raised VC funding. I'd become the ninth black woman in the UK to raise VC funding in a decade. That's incredible. It's incredible and really sad. It's incredible and really sad. Really sad that less than 0.003 % of VC funding goes to black women. So I felt all this pressure that I had to succeed as a mum, as someone who, you know, was in the papers, was in the in the public eye. And then I had these twins and they were really unwell. They needed surgery. I had all sorts of issues and I just, I couldn't focus on the company, especially with the economy being a mess and everything being bumpy.

3:55So I ended up selling the company and I was so burnt out at that point. I didn't, I didn't feel proud of the fact, you know, I'd sold in this three-way bid. I felt like a massive failure, which I later learned was part of burnout. out.

4:11And I did this kind of big order and I sat with my husband and I said, I think I need extended maternity leave. So how do we make this work? You know, financially we'd been used to having two incomes and I was in a privileged position where I could say, okay, you have to hold down the thought I'm going to do bits and pieces of inbound work as they come. But this is a time when focusing on the kids and going through that rediscovery of myself after having twins, going from a mum of two to a mum of four. What was that like? Oh, gosh, that's that's I could talk about that for an hour. It was difficult, though.

4:46It was a really big shift, especially because you get less support with the second or third or fourth child because everyone thinks you have it figured out. And actually, no one has twins figured out. But even going from one to two, it's I've doubled my number of children twice. it's such a shift in who you are as a person changes in the amount of resource you have changes. So I did this big order. And actually, I've got some prompts on my Instagram, if you kind of scroll, there's some work life harmony prompts, how to get started, where you think about doing this order, and you think about things like your energy, and even your cycle.

5:23I've done a post on how to work differently, you know, during your menstrual phase, as opposed to your luteal phase, or when you're ovulating and the different types of work you do. If you're ovulating, that's a great time for meetings, for photo shoots. You look your best, you feel your best. And then when you are in your luteal phase, you're not feeling so great, but you're really reflective. And if you don't watch it, you can get into these spirals of, you know, thinking about a conversation you had six years ago. Actually, using that time for retrospectives and audits and reflection is really good.

5:54So you can use my audit questions that are on my Instagram or come up with your own. But auditing is the first step. So you can look at what plates am I spinning? What do I need to put down, even if it's put it down for now?

6:07Rachael Twumasi-Corson:Yeah. So that's that's kind of the big one. And the other one is really quick and easy. That's the more complex one. So a tool I use most days, it's the 5-4-3-2-1. So it takes five minutes. Before you set your five minute timer, you take four deep breaths. And what I like to do is I will breathe in for four hold for four release for four do that four times it's easy to remember because it's just four then I set my five minute timer I write down three big things I have to achieve that day I write down two things I'm going to do that my future self will thank me for and one act of self-care and there is always time you always have five minutes to do that some days I do find that the three things I've written down I don't get to achieve more but I'll make some progress on each of them and the two things for my future self maybe I'll only do one or maybe it's a really small one like put on the slow cooker do a food order book a cleaner but those are massive though because those are the things that just run in the background of the tabs that are like there's nothing for dinner there's nothing that'll really stress me out all day yeah so stressful yeah exactly but the big thing is once you've done your five four three two, one, that's taken five minutes.

7:16You don't leave it there. It's not just another list. It's not another tab in your brain. You then schedule it in. So I will get out my phone calendar and I'll put these things in. Or if I'm using a paper diary because I'm at my desk that day, I will physically write down, this is the time I'm going to do all of these things. And what you're doing with all of this stuff, we're trying to create harmony, is you are scheduling your priorities. Because if you don't, a lot of us, we prioritize what comes up on the calendar so if my boss has put a meeting in if you know my husband wants to go to dinner whatever it pops up you know the birthday parties the this that and we're pulled in multiple directions then you're not the conductor of your orchestra yeah your life it will be difficult you'll be out of harmony whereas if you step back and you say these are the key things i've done my five four three two one i need to schedule in these three things i need to schedule in my one that act of self-care even if it's I'm going to read a book I'm going to take a lunch break as sometimes if we're honest that act of self-care or even 10 minutes even 10 minutes yeah if you don't schedule that in it's not going to happen so schedule it in set alarms if you have to for me a really big one when I was figuring out this whole work-life harmony thing is I love creative writing I'm a big writer I've been writing since I was a kid and I'm working on a novel so for me finding time to write is almost impossible but I have a writing group I now run on the Saturdays and I've scheduled it in and nothing can take up that time because I have a responsibility I have to run this group for people so because of that it happens and if there's birthday parties usually my husband will take the kids if we both have to take a child to a party then I'll ask someone else to run it but then I've missed a week and because it's in my schedule most weeks I get to do some writing.

9:02It's not in your schedule. It's not going to happen. So do your 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and then schedule in your priorities. It's the same with your audit. Whatever comes out of the audit, because I think most mums, we know deep down what's important. We know we don't want to miss the birthdays. Okay, so book holiday for all of your kids' birthdays. That's something I do at the start of every year. I book off my birthday, my husband's birthday and my kid's birthday from my calendar so that I'm not stressed. Even if they're at school that day I want to make sure that I've got time to make everything really nice for them and I'm not

9:34Rachael Twumasi-Corson:worried of thinking about making a cake at 3am which you often hear oh my gosh it's so common for mums right yeah but we can think in advance birthdays are the same day every year so we've got that going for us that came out of doing one of my audits so when we do our audits you'll be surprised at what you unearth but we do have those answers deep down sometimes we just need to give ourselves the time and the luxury of thinking you know about our own lives and how we want to conduct it that was the episode i hoped you loved it if you did please make sure you subscribe and i will see you next time